Ben Gurion University Convention Center

LOCATION: Be'er Sheva
PROGRAMME: Convention Center
SIZE: 3,000 sqm
STATUS: Competition, 2022 - 1st prize; Design, 2024 - On Hold
CLIENT: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

The university convention center is the building that, more than any other, symbolizes the spirit and vision of the university, and as such it should represent innovation, excellence, initiative and a connection to place. The proposed building draws its inspiration from the simplicity and wisdom embodied in the traditional Bedouin tent, which for centuries has offered a variety of changing spaces along a shaded horizontal continuum.
The iconic "tent" will host the most important events on campus, but just as important will be the relationship formed between it and the students precisely when it is not active, as they pass through its shade on their way to the faculties or to the adjacent dormitories. Accordingly, the proposal is based on two extreme states and on the space that unfolds between them: events and conferences on the one hand, and everyday activity on the other.
The large envelope delimiting the convention center allows a great wealth of activities to take place in its shade and offers a unique response to a range of changing requirements, whether during major events, minor ones, or at times when no events are held at all. A wide variety of possibilities for gathering, activity and leisure, formal or spontaneous, is achieved through a sequence of exterior and interior spaces of varying quality and scale, related to one another and feeding one another. In this way the circle of users of the building expands to the general public, and it becomes a new urban icon.